


Terrarium

by whimwitch



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Assisted Suicide, Cannibalism, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Drug Use, Guro, Heartshipping, Implied puzzleshipping, M/M, Needles, Overdosing, Post-Canon, Vivisection, angst and death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-16
Updated: 2021-03-16
Packaged: 2021-03-25 12:28:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30089100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whimwitch/pseuds/whimwitch
Summary: Yuugi approaches Ryou with a grotesque idea to bond the two together forever.
Relationships: Bakura Ryou/Mutou Yuugi
Comments: 6
Kudos: 8





	Terrarium

It was not just the whims of Ryou's hunger that led to Yuugi being consumed; his own gnawing desires escalated it to this point. He wished for his blood and body to be treated as a delicacy. And Ryou, too, shared this twisted fantasy—not to take Yuugi's life with his own hands, but to enjoy him so fully, completely, that every inch could be savored. Nothing was off-limits.

"Will it hurt?" Yuugi asked even though he’d already come to terms with the obvious answer. He just wanted to hear Ryou ease him into what he'd already decided. He liked when Ryou comforted him. Yuugi leaned into Ryou and anticipated his answer as he listened to the hum of Ryou’s air conditioner whir in the background.

Ryou paused a moment, lingering on the inevitable pain of the situation. He brushed Yuugi's cheek, feeling warmth echo from his skin. "I'll make sure you're comfortable," were the words that felt most appropriate. And Ryou meant it. He'd taken great care to research methods, ways to vivisect and prolong life for as long as seemed tolerable. He'd also thought about what to do after, feeling it only appropriate to join Yuugi afterward.

"You'll be fine, I promise." Ryou said this more to assure himself rather than Yuugi. There was an eagerness in him that overruled any rational reaction to knowing in just a few hours he'd kill his best friend and lover. 

Reminding himself of his motivation, Ryou whispered,"You will be so beautiful," hot into Yuugi's ear, his words like steam that made Yuugi tremble. His heart raced. "We will be together forever.” He squeezed Yuugi in his arms, the smaller resting his back against Ryou’s stomach. Ryou inhaled—Yuugi had a warm freshness, a soft musk, that drove him mad. Yuugi shivered. There was something so pleasantly possessive about the way Ryou spoke to him, eyed him up and down with a lustful hunger, even though Yuugi was the one who first mentioned his interest.

* * *

Ryou was not initially okay with accepting Yuugi's proposal; to cannibalize his closest friend, the boy he'd grown close to out of a mutual, unspoken infatuation for one another, was not something that ever seemed like a possibility. Sure, he'd thought of doing so many other things to Yuugi, even objectified him with his own lust at times. _What he dreamed of doing to this small, obedient submissive._ But it was Yuugi who surprised Ryou by coming to him and admitting, practically begging, that he was interested in much more deviant ideas of pleasure.

"I want you to cut me open," Yuugi choked out, his confidence stifled by his over-awareness of how he'd come across. He read Ryou's expression before continuing; the other boy looked at him with widened eyes. Yuugi accepted the risk. "And once I'm all open for you, I want you to eat me. Right in front of me. I want to watch you tear into me."

They waded through the silence. Their eyes did not meet and their only awareness for one another was the primal sensing of the other's heat and breath.

"Yuugi?"

The smaller of the two could barely get the courage to meet the other's eyes. But he'd already come this far. No turning back.

"I want you to cut me open and admire me from the inside, Ryou. I've seen the way you hover your hands over my stomach. I've felt the way you grab my ribs and scratch, bite. I know it's something you've at least thought about when you're on top of me. You want me, don't you?"

Ryou paused. "I'm just looking, Yuugi!" He said this as a way of testing the conversation. _What if he was just joking? Or it's just a fantasy?_

"It's more than that and I know it. I know you're..." Yuugi stopped, realizing how manipulative he was coming across. But he wouldn't have mentioned it if it wasn't something he was already sure Ryou would take interest in. "You're curious, aren't you?"

Ryou didn't want to fully admit it to himself. He had a morbid curiosity in others, and in himself, and more than once he'd had hints of fantasy that verged on homicidal. But he'd always assumed that was just his other self speaking. _It was the ring spirit who wanted this. It can't be me!_ But he couldn't completely convince himself. He thought of times he'd examined his own wounds, admiring the intricateness of his own flesh. Each line on his skin a grid interrupted by the jagged cut carved into his flesh by his other-self. _Or was it himself?_ He couldn't remember. But he did remember the taste, lapping up his own juice from the knife that extracted it. Though, the valley careening though his arm was not quite as beautiful to his friends. When he showed them, they found it downright revolting. And so he kept his interests private, at least to everyone but Yuugi. 

Ryou thought of the times with his own fingers, his own teeth, he'd grazed Yuugi's belly— so soft when exposed to him—with a carnivorous urge to plunge in, to not be quite so gentle. It wasn’t Yuugi, rather his curiosity that coerced him. He wanted to see what was underneath, all to himself; every vessel, vein, entrail beating below the surface just for him. There was an excitement about knowing what was just out of sight that sent his imagination wild with desire. Sure, he was _curious._

"I might be. But I don't really know if that's right, Yuugi. I don't want to hurt you."

"You wouldn't be," Yuugi assured. He'd felt less and less attached to this world after being left vacant for so long. And the attachment that he did feel only came from the idea of being possessed by another again. "You're always so gentle. Even if you were killing me, I know it'd be okay." Yuugi felt the other sigh, Ryou's belly pressing against his back and then softening again. Yuugi nestled himself under the canopy of Ryou's hair. "It would be something special. For both of us." 

* * *

Ryou filled the syringe to just the right mark, with enough lidocaine to block sensation (at least most of it) to Yuugi's abdomen. Ryou knew the stuff was good; he had already rehearsed this action and practiced with the drug on himself after buying a few vials from a shady dealer. Steadying his arm, he angled the needle with the same precise posture he'd copied from hours of medical videos watched in preparation. _In quickly. Release. Then pull it back out._ With a swift motion, the needle penetrated Yuugi's navel; his skin gripped the thin line of metal, a gentle tug and spasm of resistance rippled in his flesh until breaking before Ryou. It slid in. Ryou injected the drug, his thumb on the plunger pushing slowly. The fluid, syrupy and smooth, spread warm inside Yuugi's abdomen; the needle burned and Yuugi churned his face in pain. He clung to Ryou's arms for just a moment before Ryou set the syringe aside and lay a trail of kisses down like wildflowers on his belly, the lidocaine dewing from the little hole. Each kiss became an echo of the other until Yuugi felt nothing but a soft buzz throughout his core; whispers through his nerves.

"How do you feel?"

"Blank."

"But good?"

Yuugi pulled Ryou in for a kiss, wet and with sensation, and their lips interlaced. Ryou's lips gradually numbed from kissing the injection site and the kiss became a dream, a ghost of all of the kisses they'd shared before. Mournful.

"You love me?"

"Always." Ryou paused, pressing his palm against Yuugi's chest to savor its beating.

"You'll stay with me?"

"The whole time and after."

* * *

Ryou surveyed Yuugi nearly every day, sometimes multiple times, to check again and again that this is what he wanted only to be given a multitude of yeses. There was more to it than the inherent eroticism of one's death, which was what initially allured Ryou. 

For Yuugi, there was a need for him to be together, with someone, _a part of someone_ , in death for a sense of control. For months he'd shared his body with someone who died before his time, died without knowledge of his fate, and, more importantly, died without those he loved surrounding him. Atem was given a bittersweet send-off the second time around, but, to Yuugi, it didn’t feel right knowing that Atem was never given the proper farewell a pharaoh deserves. His body was never preserved, his guts never handled with care, his closest followers had not joined him in his tomb. As his former vessel and incarnation, Yuugi felt it was his duty to give their body the ceremony it deserved. 

And another part of him so desperately wanted to rejoin him down the river. His dreams were an endless floating that overlapped into his waking hours, bringing him closer and closer to the part of his soul that was taken from him. And the hole left where Atem's spirit belonged wore on Yuugi in a way no other would understand. Except Ryou.

* * *

"How do you want to lie down?" Ryou asked, cradling Yuugi in his arms.

"Being like this is nice. Then maybe after everything, you can put me on my back. At least until it's over." Yuugi tangled his fingers through Ryou's hair.

"Anything for you."

The feeling of being half empty was a constant torture. He needed something more.

Ryou glided his hands down Yuugi's body, starting from his shoulders and working his way down to grip the edge of his shirt. His fingertips felt the skin underneath, soft and radiating. Ryou's fingers lingered and stroked Yuugi's belly while he squeezed him in his lap, Yuugi's wavy hair rippled against Ryou's cheek. Yuugi gasped, his breath escaping like steam from a kettle; he was surprised how quickly the drugs took effect.

"I can't feel anything, just pressure."

Ryou smiled and squeezed him harder, then let him down on his lap. Yuugi's head rested against Ryou's knee and the two positioned themselves in anticipation of the moment that brought them together; a dissection of their love and friendship and a desire for bonds beyond the confines of flesh.

Ryou lifted Yuugi's shirt up, fully exposing his belly. He stroked it one last time and reached for the scalpel beside them. His hand shook a bit. Yuugi noticed.

"We don't have to if you don't want to."

"I want to," Ryou whispered. "I just want to do it right."

Yuugi pulled him down for a kiss to calm his nerves. Making the first move was always the hardest for Ryou. Yuugi steadied him and put his hand over Ryou's and they gripped the instrument together. Ryou smiled.

The scalpel sliced through Yuugi's top layer of flesh, his skin puckering around the blade and then separating, creating a juicy slit. A warmth rushed over Yuugi, the numbness of his skin buzzing and a strange wet feeling—the blood dripping from his open wound down to his hips. It was intoxicating gazing into the abyss that his lover created in him—a ruby void that beckoned to him like Pandora's box. He moaned a bit, but only so that Ryou understood he was in ecstasy in this moment.

"Pull it apart, I want to see inside." Yuugi grabbed at Ryou's hands, bringing them to his fresh opening.

Ryou paused, his fingers lingering on the sides of the incision. There was a brief moment of indecisiveness where he wasn't quite sure if he should open the other and peek inside. Would he like what he saw if he did? Would it disgust him? No—he was worried it would just affirm the desires he'd stomped down for so long. Yuugi's wound was warm, dripping, and a cistern lay just below finger's reach, almost begging to be excavated. _What wonders are hidden inside?_

Ryou lay Yuugi back to keep any more blood from spilling out, instead letting it pool in the crease of his abdomen. Ryou pressed gently against both sides of Yuugi's separated flesh, his muscle still tugging at the skin and not fully opening. Yuugi shuddered, the tension just enough to feel, and the adrenaline of being splayed open kept him on edge. 

"I'll have to cut just a little bit more," Ryou said in a hushed, reassuring whisper. He took hold of the scalpel once more and separated layers of muscle from flesh, each cut gliding through like tearing cellophane, digging deeper and deeper into the cavern just below Yuugi's ribs. His guts lay neatly intact, now exposed for both boys to admire. It was sick, yet divine. And this divinity brought Ryou to his hands and knees, as if bowing to idolize the sacrifice before him.

Yuugi's intestines beat with life, like fish below the surface pulsating the water above. Ripples of flesh and blood. They squeezed neatly against one another and beat rhythmically, one section after the other. The excitement in Ryou flowed. Captivated, he reached out and stroked the lively array of entrails, jumping a bit from the surprise that they'd move with soft flexes in response to his touch; he felt himself throb too.

"Don't hold back now," Yuugi said, his eyes wide from a mix of excitement and drug-induced haziness. "Keep touching me."

Ryou looked down again at the pulsating organs below him; there was a sense of serenity in this untouched beauty, serene like a terrarium on display behind a layer of glass. He needed to prune it. He grabbed a fistful of Yuugi, his lower intestine spilling out and slinking around the back of his wrist. It felt warm. Slick. The smell of iron and a sickly sweet stench of acid perfumed the room, making Ryou feel seconds from retching—not out of repulsion, but from overexcitement, overarousal, and the overwhelming feeling of caving in to his most primal urges. He took Yuugi's intestine, still beating, wet in his hands and pulled it up toward his face, the heat from it kissing his lips. Yuugi groaned from the friction and the shift in weight in his gut, a freeing emptiness. He waited, watching Ryou handle his inner workings delicately in his palm just before his mouth. His teeth. 

He tasted of blood, grit, and sinew. Utterly revolting, and yet Ryou filled himself, devouring small pieces of his friend to bond them together forever.

And Yuugi in this moment felt that drifting, liminal sensation he desperately needed, teetering between consciousness, and freed his mind from the longing to be taken over by another. The only tangible feeling he had was of his stomach plunging—the same motion sickness that came from butterflies in his stomach. He saw them fly crimson from inside of him and land on Ryou’s cheek, rolling down his chin. There was his blood, beautiful, and no longer only his. He gave himself up to Ryou, lying back now, breathless. His vision swirled and the butterflies landed on his cheek now. It was Ryou’s lips, kissing and suckling his neck and staining a trail of rouge, wet and warm, on his skin.

Snapping out from the static, Yuugi felt Ryou’s hand pet his hair. His hearing dropped in fidelity, Ryou’s voice sounding like he was behind a door. “Yuugi, you’re beautiful,” was all he could make out. His skin prickled and all he could answer back was muddled I-love-yous, words like letters in glass bottles at sea. Ryou cherished each and every syllable, every tear that puddled in Yuugi’s eyes, and every drop of red spilling from his body. Reaching inside of Yuugi now, he dug his hands around, pulling and tugging his way through the entrails and rubbing his fingers on the underside of Yuugi’s ribs. Ryou had no plan for what he’d do with the treasures he found inside of Yuugi; ultimately, he was happy to lavish himself in the luxury of his lover’s body. He rested his head on the crevice carved out from Yuugi’s stomach and felt his skin burn from the warmth below him. He dug his hands deeper, following the beating getting easier to feel yet more faint the more he reached inside. And then he found it: Yuugi’s still-beating heart, its pulse beginning to fade. Ryou held onto it and sunk deeper inside Yuugi, his white hair dyed in the blood of the other. It felt so full of life even in this moment, and so very fragile in the palm of his hand. Ryou stroked the fading muscle as Yuugi softly spasmed; he lay there for a while as the beating stopped. 

It was now, nestled in the crook just under the ribcage, that Ryou felt immense loneliness; the only one who understood him was now just a corpse of their shared pleasure. 

Yuugi’s lifeless body cradled Ryou with the same tenderness as he held the other just moments before. The isolation he felt ripped open deep wounds of attachment that lay dormant in their friendship. Each loss Ryou suffered was just another reminder of how easy his life would be if he could return to those who’d left him: his mother, his sister, his old school friends, and the spirit of the ring that possessed him for nearly a decade. There’s a sense of comfort that comes in the dissociation from self, but the temporary ease he felt was gone. He navigated his grief with the same delicacy as jagged glass and it cut into him deep, and it severed any calm he’d carved out for himself inside of Yuugi. 

Ryou wept, wiping his face on his shirt. This was a pain that he didn’t fully prepare for; he treated another yet again with the kindness he should have afforded to himself. And yet he didn’t regret seeing the other gutted before him. He rationalized this was just the release of every emotion he’d ever felt—for himself, for others who’d been kind to him, Yuugi especially. It was a tender mixture of mourning but also hope. He knew he’d be bound to Yuugi now from their grotesque union of blood, bile, and tears. Ryou smiled and soothed himself by stroking Yuugi’s limp hand, lifting it in its dead weight to his lips for another kiss—the knowledge they’d be reunited soon swelled in him. He laid a final kiss on the other’s lips, cold, staining them rouge. And his goosebumps led him to the last of the lidocaine waiting for him to finish what he’d promised to the other. He filled the needle, the plunger suctioning every last drop of the clear fluid from the remaining vials. The drug flooded the syringe, each a raindrop of panacea. With one arm outstretched and veins creeping up to greet the needle tip, he inoculated himself and waited for the immunity from any remaining pain and sorrow to wash over him.

Ryou nestled himself back onto the pillows of guts remaining in Yuugi’s abdomen and nuzzled his face against his insides. The anesthetic kicked in faster than he guessed and within seconds his entire body felt like it was buzzing with life, a light static, and his skin felt as if he were taking root in the soils of his beloved. Senses overwhelmed, Ryou writhed weightlessly, gasping and pressing his head farther into the cavern of flesh and bone, as if wearing Yuugi’s ribs as a crown, lustrated in the blood of his beloved. And then they were both still, completely consumed by one another.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Kudos/comments are appreciated ❤. Big thank you to [miscellanium](https://archiveofourown.org/users/miscellanium/pseuds/miscellanium) for being my beta and shout out to the homies from Skumsuck's Art Farts for listening to part of this on stream.


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